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Election Promises
"Until a candidate can offer me something beyond a pretty face and some worthless promises, I’m glad I’m not old enough to vote for president."
By Ben Gittelson
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Youth Radio's Ben Gittelson describes an unfortunate parallel between his fifth grade student council election and the election of our U.S. President.
Four years later, I’m still a little sore from losing the fifth-grade student council election. I still wonder why I didn’t win. Maybe it was that I didn’t hand out enough candy or maybe it was that I didn’t promise to bring cell phones into my school or take away the dress code. Despite the speeches the other candidates and I gave, my fellow fifth graders still didn’t know anything about who they were voting for.
Sure, being president of the United States might take a little more work than being the student council representative for Mr. Braun’s class. But modern U.S. presidential elections seem to be about as shallow as an elementary school popularity contest. A huge number of voters who are going to show up for the 2008 elections will probably base their vote on how much “candy” a candidate gives them – you know, how many empty promises that candidate makes. It doesn’t matter if it’s Barack, Hillary, Mitt or Rudy handing out the goodies in a heavily scripted speech choreographed and written by campaign managers and speechwriters.
Until a candidate can offer me something beyond a pretty face and some worthless promises, I’m glad I’m not old enough to vote for president. Instead, on Election Day, I’ll be thinking about why I wasn’t elected to fifth grade student council.
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